Pastoral duties have me busy presently, but I could not pass this up.

One of the most foolish things that we hear today is the idea that Scripture is incarnate.

It is not.

God the Word, Jesus the Christ, is incarnate.

Scripture is inspired, but not incarnate.

The closest that Scripture comes to being incarnate is in its being fulfilled in Christ.

The next closest Scripture comes to being incarnate is by being wrapped in Moroccan leather, or something similar.

I do not say that irreverently. I say it seriously. We cannot make Christ and Scripture so totally one that we do not distinguish between them.

The Son of God came to us in flesh. Scripture came via the Spirit in a text.

God The Fount Of All Truth And Rationality

“Without God there is no meaning (truth, rationality, etc.); therefore God exists.”¹

Many years ago a man asked the question, “What is truth?”² We can only speculate about why he asked this question. It is, however, a question that we all must ask. What is truth? Truth is that which conforms to reality. It is the actual state of a matter, and it is also fidelity to a required standard or law³ Having this answer will help us move forward.

The greater problem is that all of us believe that we have truth on our side. Folks who believe in absolute truth argue for their position and do so quite strenuously. Those who do not believe in absolute truth are often absolutely sure of their position as well. Those who believe that there is no such thing as truth and that all things are meaningless are also convinced that their arguments have meaning and are true. How do we judge these claims? How do we deal with this issue? Who is correct? Whose truth is true?

The answer to the above questions brings us back to our definition of truth as that which is faithful to a required standard or law. There must be a standard of truth or we will never have anything by which to measure truth claims. Every man could, and would, be a law unto himself. Truth would be relative without an absolute standard. One man’s truth would be another’s lie, and one nation’s lie would be another nation’s truth. There must be a standard.

What is this standard? First of all the standard must be absolute, or else there will be no consistency or rationality. After all, if truth is forever changing, there is actually no truth at all; because what is true at one point in history would susceptible to becoming an untruth in a moment of time, though nothing but the standard changed. The goal posts would forever be moving and mankind would have no ability to be rational. “David Hume, the great skeptic, has effectively argued that if you allow any room for Chance in your thought, then you no longer have the right to speak of probabilities. Whirl would be king. No one hypothesis would have any more relevance to facts than any other hypothesis. Did God raise Christ from the dead? Perchance he did. Did Jupiter do it? Perchance he did. What is Truth? Nobody knows.”⁴ There must be an absolute standard of truth.

We all are convinced that we have truth. Even the person who believes that truth does not exist, or is relative, is ironically certain that his position is the truth. The one who says that there is no truth, and that words have no meaning, still expects us to find meaning and truth in what he says. Cornelius Van Til responded to such ideas and said, “No human being can explain in the sense of seeing through all things, but only he who believes in God has the right to hold that there is an explanation at all.”⁵

How does God even come into this discussion? Does logic equal God? Hardly, but, on the other hand, logic cannot exist without God. Truth cannot exist without God. Speaking of the Van Tillian view of knowledge, John Frame says, “Without God there is no meaning (truth, rationality, etc.); therefore God exists.”⁶ Greg Bahsen spoke of God and said, “His existence is required for the uniformity of nature and for the coherence of all things in the world.”⁷ This necessity for God is the thing we must prove.

We have already seen that there is a necessity for an absolute standard of truth if we are to have rationality. Why must this standard be God? First of all I must be clear that I mean the transcendent, immanent, eternal, immutable, personal, Trinitarian God of the Christian Scriptures. “Nothing is intelligible unless God exists, and God must be nothing less than the Trinitarian, sovereign, transcendent, and immanent absolute personality of the Scriptures.”⁸ Here I speak of Him only as the eternal and immutable God. (The other attributes will be addressed later in this series.) This God is the standard of truth. He is the truth. John Frame has said that “the argument is transcendental. Rather than offering straightforward empirical evidence for God, it asks the deeper question: what must be the case if evidential argument and knowledge (and hence objective moral standards) are to be possible?”⁹ The answer is that God exists and the Bible provides the only grounds for truth and rationality. But we still must prove God’s necessity.

This world has no other standard of truth than God. God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), and He alone is the arbiter and source of knowledge and truth (Deuteronomy 32:4;1Samuel 2:3;John 14:6¹⁰;2Corinthians 1:18;1John 2:27). Why is He the standard? Because He is the Creator. “If the Christian position with respect to creation, that is, with respect to the idea of the origin of both the subject and the object of human knowledge is true, there is and must be objective knowledge. In that case the world of objects was made in order that the subject of knowledge, namely man, should interpret it under God. Without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God the whole world would be meaningless. The subject and object are therefore adapted to one another. On the other hand if the Christian theory of creation by God is not true then we hold that there cannot be objective knowledge of anything. In that case all things in this universe are unrelated and cannot be in fruitful contact with one another. This we believe to be the simple alternative on the question of the objectivity of knowledge as far as the things of this universe are concerned.”¹¹ There is simply no other way that there can be coherence and rationality. Either God the Creator is the sole and absolute standard and authority, with all things relating to Him and subordinate to Him, or there is no knowledge, truth, or rationality.

Thus we conclude by saying, if God then absolute truth. If we know anything at all, it is because God is the fount of all knowledge and truth.

God As The Fount Of Knowledge

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

“Let all the earth fear the Lord: Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” (Psalm 33:8–9)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1–3)

“Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And thy law is the truth.” (Psalm 119:142, AV 1873)

“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” (1 John 5:9–10, AV 1873)

English: Psalm 90 of The Holy Bible, King James version, 1772. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The texts that head up this article provide us with some insight into the issues that this article introduces.

First of all we encounter the eternal God who is both the Creator of all things as well as the fount of all truth and knowledge, being the Word. He is eternal, prior to Creation, and of infinite intelligence.

Next we find that this God, the all-knowing Creator of all things, is also ruler of all things. We find that He is sovereign in His wisdom and intelligence.

We also read that God has revealed Himself to us in a written record, and that record is true.

In this article I simply plan to present the things for which I shall argue in future articles, and I shall presently provide no arguments for the things I am asserting. That being said, here are the things for which I shall argue:

1. There can be no knowledge or truth apart from God as the source of all truth. No God, no rationality.

2. The God who is revealed in the Bible is the only sufficient ground of knowledge and rationality.

a. He is truth.

b. He is unchanging.

c. He is a plurality in unity.

d. He is transcendent and immanent.

e. He is sovereign over all.

3. The Bible, being the only sufficient basis for knowledge and rationality, and being a revelation of God, is absolutely true.

4. Thoughts toward a presuppositional, inerrantist hermeneutic.

There is much to be said on these subjects, and it will take a long time to flesh these things out. Please feel free to leave any suggestions or recommendations in the comments

When I hear a rustling of leaves in the treetops, I do not say, “I hear the sound of the wind.” I say that I hear the wind.

If I stand before a mirror and my wife walks up behind me, I do not think, “I see the likeness of my wife.” I think, “There is my wife!”

As I listen to a recording of music, I do not say, “I heard the sound of a piano.” I say that I hear a piano.

So it is when I open my Bible. I do not simply read a record of man’s experience with God. I encounter God. Neither do I see words on a page alone, but I hear the voice of God. Thus I hear God. He speaks to me in His Word.

Therefore, away with the scoffer who wishes to tell me that God is imperfectly present with me. Away with the liberal idea that God is speaking to me via untruths, when He is omnipresently and omnipotently speaking absolutely truthfully.

And woe to those who dare to speak so disrespectfully as to say that I worship my Bible! I worship it not. I do, however, worship the One who speaks to me in the Scriptures and whose presence is thus mediated to me through that Word.

When I open my Bible and believe that it is unfailingly true, I honor the God who speaks therein, for He is true.

Reading through Matthew, then Mark, and then Luke, a young person can get bored: Didn’t I see this story before? I get it already: How many people did Jesus heal? But something else happens, too. You begin to notice little inconsistencies. Did Jesus say that whoever is not with him is against him (Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23), or did he say that whoever is not against him is for him (Mark 9:40)? Who was there to visit Jesus’ tomb? How did Judas die (Matthew 27:1-10; Acts 1:18-19)?

An innocent Bible reader assumes there must be satisfactory resolutions to such problems. But no such explanations exist. Different biblical books simply tell stories differently. Some offer conflicting answers to important questions.

HuffPo (Emphasis mine.)

…it is a reasonable principle, recognized among critics of secular historians, that two writers must not be held to be contradictory where any natural mode of harmonizing can be imagined. Otherwise it amounts to holding that we know fully and thoroughly all facts of the case, – better even than eye-witnesses seem ever to know them.

Warfield, Works vol 1 pg 417

I think that it is obvious that there is only one of these approaches that is correct.

I think it is also obvious to the thinking person which approach is correct.

God In Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

There are many things about which students of the Bible differ, yet I believe that almost all would agree that Scripture was given to us that we might know about God and know God. Some would deny that the first three chapters of Genesis speak to us about a literal, physical creation. Others deny that these chapters present to us a historical narrative of the creation. Others believe that these first three chapters of Genesis are myths. Almost all agree, however, that these chapters speak to us about God.

The very first verse of Genesis tells us that there was a beginning. There was a time when the heaven and the earth were not. There was also a time when time was not. There was a beginning of time, because there was a beginning of everything. To be a little more precise, we cannot say that there was a time when time was not. We must simply say that time had a beginning. Yet the beginning of time could not have been in time. Therefore time must have had its beginning in eternity, which is not simply unlimited time, but timelessness.

What does this tell us about God? First of all, it tells us that time is God’s creation. Time is subject to God and not God to time. This means that God is timeless. Though time has meaning to God, He is not bound by time. God exists outside of time because He existed before time.

The implications of this are vast. One thing that this presents to us is the fact that God is eternal. He had no beginning, but He is the source of the beginning. God is before, outside of, and superior to time. These things give us a picture of the true God in contrast to the gods of the nations with whom Israel interacted. All of the gods that we find in Ancient Near Eastern literature are gods who dwell within time. These gods had beginnings. They were subject to the ravages of time and death. They were created, they fought, the warred, the died. The Creator, the God of Israel, however, is not subject to these things. He is eternal. He has no beginning, and thus has no end. He is greater than the gods of the heathen. He is superior to them.

In fact, the gods of the heathen are not true gods, and could have no existence even as figments of men’s imaginations if it were not for the eternal Creator-God, the God of Israel. This means that the God of Israel, who created all things and is eternal, is the greatest of all gods. It also means that He is the God of the heathen as well as the God of Israel. He is the God whom all men should worship.

While we are looking at these things we must ask ourselves one question: How is it that we can speak of God, eternity, and time and yet declare that the Bible says nothing at all about science, but much about God? While the Scriptures are telling us much about God and His eternal God-hood, Scripture is also speaking about time. It is interesting to note that scientists have spent much time contemplating time. We must conclude that Scripture is telling us something about science, if it is telling us something about God creating time.

If we deny that Genesis 1:1 speaks to us of science, we must also deny that Scripture is speaking to us of God who is, and who is eternal. We then must deny that Scripture is speaking to us truly in any fashion. That is a high price to pay, yet it is the logical end of those who do not begin with the presupposition of the absolute truthfulness of Scripture.

EA posted a few weeks ago about a certain guy, or group of guys, calling the Bible broken and fragile.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the midst of it all DaveZ told us that the statement was a direct quote from Bonhoeffer. DaveZ was almost correct. I’m being pedantic, because Bonhoeffer said,

…the fragile and broken Bible…

whereas Enns et al said

…broken and fragile…

Thus the quote was not a direct quote of Bonhoeffer, but a good approximation of his words.

That is truly nothing to sweat over.

The true issue before us is that Bonhoeffer spoke of the Bible as fragile and broken. Does that statement support the Ennsian view of the fallibility of Scripture? Does it support the view that Scripture is broken and in error at certain points?

First of all, I must say that I’m not very familiar with Bonhoeffer’s writings and do not know if he stood for or against inerrancy. For the purpose of learning what he said, however, I bought his book, “Reflections On The Bible: Human Word And Word Of God”.

Interestingly enough I found little in that particular book that led me to think the Bonhoeffer was in favor of declaring Scripture in error. I must add the caveat that he may very well have done so in other writings.

In this particular book Bonhoeffer spends much time speaking of Scripture as God’s Word. He seems to have maintained that Scripture was the very voice of God speaking to us.

Another interesting thing is that little is said about the human side of the Scriptures.

That being said, let’s look at Bonhoeffer’s statement about the “fragile and broken Bible”. Does this statement support the view that Scripture is in error? Let’s allow the context to speak for itself.

Bonhoeffer has actually been speaking of the critics of Scripture in this particular section (pg 14-15 in my copy). He said,

After thoroughly reducing the text to rubble, the critics depart from the battlefield, leaving behind debris and shavings, their work apparently done. In terms of its content, the biblical picture is smoothed out to correspond to the spirit of its time, miracle stories are paralleled , and yes, even the person of Jesus himself is stripped not only of his divine but of his human splendor and disappears without any distinguishing marks into the lists of rabbis, sages, and religious enthusiasts.

 

Bonhoeffer does not seem to truly have much confidence in the work of the critics, does he?

He goes on to say,

 

…the testimony of Jesus as the Risen One is nothing else than what is presented to us by the Bible. we remain also clear-headed and objective as believers. We must read this book of books with all human methods. But through the fragile and broken Bible, God meets us in the voice of the Risen One.

(Emphasis added.)

Consider this in the light of his opening words in this particular chapter:

The Christian religion stands or falls by its faith in divine revelation in history, a revelation that is real, tangible, visible- to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The Christian faith thus bears in its innermost core the question of the relation of history and spirit, or, in biblical terms, letter and Spirit, Scripture and revelation, human word and word of God.

 

Bonhoeffer did without a doubt hold that Scripture is human word and Word of God. That is no surprise. I think that most who hold to inerrancy do the same.

The real question, however, is what did Bonhoeffer mean by calling Scripture “fragile and broken”?

Context presents Bonhoeffer as speaking of the critics demolishing the biblical text and doing little more. The same text that they demolish, this “fragile and broken Bible”, is the one in which God meets us in the voice of Jesus, the Risen One.

Far from declaring that Scripture is fragile and broken, and declaring “get over it”, Bonhoeffer says that men try to destroy Scripture; but this “fragile and broken Bible” remains the Word of God.

“In Scripture there are no throwaway lines.”
C.J Mahaney
here

In a previous article I spoke of God as the source of truth and the ultimate standard of truth. We all live as if this were true, whether we accept the foregoing statement as true or not. We live by a standard of truth and expect others to live by the same standard. For example, when I go to the bank to deposit my money, I expect the tellers to come to the same total as I do when they have completed their addition. Why? Because I know that there is a standard by which we operate. Two plus two always equals four. The fact that we live by such a standard points to the reality of the absolute and ultimate standard. There could be no standard of truth if there were no Christian God. The God of the Bible is not only all knowing, but is the source of all knowledge and truth. He is truth.

The above statements may seem to be somewhat of a leap, but consider that morality also exists. There is an ought-ness about certain things in life; and that ought-ness is personal, and presupposes an absolute person who cares about what we do. We do not live in an impersonal world. We interact with persons all the time. We live in a world that is so full of personality that we often give inanimate objects personal names, and many men refer to their cars as “she” and “her”. We have no true moral responsibility to inanimate objects as such. We may have a moral responsibility to God and to others in regard to how we deal with inanimate objects, but we are not morally responsible to an inanimate object itself.

Morals demand one to whom we are morally responsible. They also demand an absolute standard of morality. Since morality is impossible without personality, it follows that there is an absolute person who is the final arbiter and ultimate standard of morality. The God of the Bible certainly fits this description. He is called the God of truth who is without iniquity (Deuteronomy 32:4;2Corinthians 1:18) and all men will give account to Him in the judgment (Romans 14:10-12).

What does morality have to do with truth? That is the question that some will ask. It is a good and valid question. It is also a question that must be answered. The answer is that truth must be respected, honored, and adhered to. If we do not do so we are being immoral. To commit an offense against the absolute standard of truth is to commit a moral offense. An offense against God is an issue of moral consequence. God cares what we believe. It matters to God whether we believe the truth or not. He cares whether we speak truly or not. To stray from the absolute standard of truth is to offend against the absolute person who is the standard of morality and the judge of all men.

It may be argued that there is no moral culpability when one commits an error due to ignorance. We don’t truly live this way, however. Should I be fully convinced that a new bridge which will shorten people’s commute times by fifty percent is opened, and I inform everyone I see that it is opened though it is not; I can assure you that there will be a large number of people who will hold me responsible for giving them wrong information and causing them to be late for work. Ignorance will be accepted as no excuse. We also know that ignorance of the law will not excuse us in court if we have broken the law. Ignorance may be considered by many to be a mitigating circumstance, but it is not an excusing circumstance. Many times we find ourselves gaining new information and thinking, “Well, I’m glad that I know better now.” Scripture does not allow us to do that. Scripture compels us to look back on our ignorance with shame, and then commands us to repent ( See Leviticus 4:1-35;Acts 17:30).

Let’s take this a step further. Scripture intimately connects our loyalty to truth to our morality. You see, we are morally obligated to fear the Lord. That is commanded many times in the Scriptures. At the same time we are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). Only by the fear of the Lord will we know the truth. As I am morally obligated to fear the Lord, and I am morally obligated to believe and speak the truth, truth and morality are inextricably connected.

I fear that many fail to see that man’s fall was a rejection of truth, and that man’s sinful state is one in which he suppresses the truth (Romans 1:18). Man’s fall was a rejection of truth in that he did not give glory to the one who is truly glorious (Romans 1:20), accepted the word of the one who is a liar (Genesis 3:1-7;John 8:44), and corrupted their own understanding and knowledge, thus becoming fools (Romans 1:22). This immoral rejection of truth then led, and still leads, to a rejection of the truth of God and a perversion of the truth of God.

The connection between morality and truth could hardly be more plainly seen than in a verse in the “love chapter” of the Bible, 1Corinthians 13. In 1Corinthians 13:6 Paul stated that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in truth. We would be correct to say that the opposite of unrighteousness is righteousness, but it is also correct to say that the opposite of unrighteousness is truth. Think of it: the opposite of immorality then is truth. Truth is a moral issue.

Paul, speaking to the church at Corinth, declared that he worked to bring everyone’s thoughts under submission to God (2Corinthians 10:5). It did not matter to Paul from what school one originated. What mattered to Paul is that every thought was submitted to the Lordship of Christ, and that is a moral as well as a religious issue.

The letter to the Ephesians most definitely shows that Paul considered truth and morality to be related issues. His desire for the Ephesians was that they would not live by the standards of the world (See Ephesians 4:17-24). He explained to them that those outside of Christ lived in the futility of their thoughts, and that their minds were blinded because they were ignorant of the truth. Their ignorance of the truth was not only a sinful thing, but it led to more sin in that they went head-long after sin and gross immorality.

In common, everyday life we live as if these things are true. We expect our banker to hold to the truth about addition, subtraction, multiplication, because we are relatively sure that, if he doesn’t, he will err on the side of immorality and take our money instead of erring so as to give us more money. When people speak to us, we expect them to speak the truth to us and we don’t accept ignorance as an excuse when someone is harmed due to being given wrong information. Ivory tower academics and philosophers may quibble about this, but they also deposit money in the bank, and their expectations are the same as those of the common man. It is reasonable to conclude that there is an unbreakable link between truth and morality.

There is one application that needs to be made before concluding this article. That application relates to the debate surrounding the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Not only are there some who deny that the Scriptures are inerrant, but they plainly state that there are mistakes in the Bible. Not only so, but some go so far as to say that Jesus Himself erred and ignorantly spoke things that were not true. If that is so, we cannot accept that Bible as what it claims to be: a holy book which is the true Word of God that teaches us the way of righteousness and salvation. Neither can we take Jesus to be what the Bible claims Him to be: the sinless Son of God. To insinuate error in Christ and the Bible is to insinuate sin in them. There is no way to escape that. Those who do so, no matter what they may claim about adoring Christ and accepting the authority of the Scriptures, are grossly in error and would do well to reconsider their position. What true Christian wishes to be guilty of implicitly accusing Jesus of sin and Scriptures of being deceitful and misleading?

It seems that one of the issues relating to Creation and inerrancy is that of the words of Jesus.

The question before us in this post is not whether or not Jesus was fallen (though it seems that some think that He was.), nor that Jesus was omniscient (And I believe that He was/is); but the question is, “Did Jesus speak truthfully and accurately in ALL that He said?”

Let’s remember that there is the idea that Jesus was subject to the same limitations as other men in His day. Some think that Jesus believed many of the same erroneous ideas about cosmology as others of His day. They think that Jesus could have indeed been mistaken in some of the things that He said, and among those things could be statements that seem to show Jesus believing that the Genesis Creation Account was an accurate historical narrative.

I will make a very simple argument here that declares that Jesus did not err in the things which He spoke, because Jesus spoke the very Words of God.

“And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”” (John 12:44–50, ESV)

Remember that God cannot lie. Neither can Jesus.

Jesus states that He is light come to dispel darkness.

Jesus states that His Words were commanded and given to Him by the Father.

If one decides to come to the Kenotic-Arian conclusion that Jesus emptied Himself of all Divine attributes and was thus subject to err as a man, one must recognize that Jesus’ words were the Word of God. Jesus’ words are the words by which man shall be judged.

It is easy to say that Jesus’ purpose was to give eternal life and that His words had that same goal. I definitely agree with that. Should one proceed to say that Jesus’ words were only related to eternal life and thus His accuracy only related to eternal life, then we shall greatly differ. Jesus in this passage does not differentiate between words relating to faith and practice and words relating to other issues. Jesus plainly and simply stated that He spoke with the authority of God and that His words was the Word of God.

Once we introduce error into Jesus’ words we have a problem. God cannot lie. God commanded Jesus to speak and Jesus spoke God’s Words. When error and untruths are introduced into the words of Jesus God has been made into a liar.

That is an unacceptable conclusion for one who professes Christianity.

God always speaks truly.

Jesus spoke the Words of God.

Jesus always spoke truly.

There is no escaping the matter.

Whatever one may think about the words of Jesus, make no mistake that they were right and true. To deny that is to deny the very truthfulness of God.